inflicted caused
the patient to break out in a profuse perspiration which relieved the
fever. This seems a more rational belief. Individuals were seen with
as many as twenty scars produced in this manner.

Aside from the anito belief, the Negritos have other
superstitions. Cries of birds at night are especially unlucky. If a
person is starting out on a journey and someone sneezes just as he is
leaving he will not go then. It is regarded as a sign of disaster,
and delay of an hour or so is necessary in order to allow the spell
to work off.

A certain parasitic plant that much resembles Yellow moss and grows
high up in trees is regarded as a very powerful charm. It is called
"gay-u-ma" and a man who possesses it is called "nanara gayuma." If
his eyes rest on a person during the new moon he will become sick
at the stomach, but he can cure the sickness by laying hands on the
afflicted part.

Senor Benito Guido says that when a young man he was told by Negritos
that this charm would float upstream. And when he offered to give
a carabao for it if that were so, its power was not shown. In spite
of this, however, the Negritos are firm believers in it, and, for
that matter, so also are the Christianized Zambal and Tagalog. It is
likewise thought to be of value in attracting women. If it is rubbed
on a woman or is smoked and the smoke blows on her the conquest
is complete.

CHAPTER VII

SPANISH ATTEMPTS TO ORGANIZE NEGRITOS

The attention of the Spanish Government was early attracted to the
Negritos and other savages in the Philippines, and their subjection and
conversion was the subject of many royal orders, though unfortunately
little was accomplished. One of the first decrees of the Gobierno
Superior relating especially to the Negritos was that of June 12,
1846. It runs substantially as follows:

In my visits to the provinces of these Islands, having noticed,
with the sympathy that they must inspire in all sensitive souls,
the kind of life and the privations that many of the infidel
tribes, and especially the Negritos who inhabit the mountains, are
forced to endure; and persuaded that it is a duty of all civilized
Governments and of humanity itself to better the condition of
men, who, hidden thus from society, will in time become extinct,
victims of their customs, of the unhealthfulness of the rugged
places where they live, and of our negligence in helping them; and
d